Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Hirsi Ali admits: " I am alive because I had bodyguards and he (Theo van Gogh) didn't" "I exploited his lack of fear"
Hirsi Ali admits: " I am alive because I had bodyguards and he (Theo van Gogh) didn't" "I exploited his lack of fear"
Tells interviewer that "criticism of van Gogh was legitimate" - director of planned Submission II "didn't like van Gogh"
May 26, 2006
MIM: Hirsi Ali admits in the NRC Handelsblad opinion piece written by her that she used Theo van Gogh to make the movie Submission for which he paid her 18,000 euros. She writes that she is angry about his death because, according to her it could have been prevented. To add insult to injury, the 2006 recipient of the American Jewish Committtee's 'Moral Courage Award' implies that she would not have made the movie had she not had security and that she knew that criticising the Koran could result in being killed. Ali's pathological self absorption is epitomised in the NRC article she wrote where she uses the term "I am furious:"
"...I know that I am alive because I had bodyguards and he didn't."
"I feel guilty that I exploited his lack of fear because I knew that whoever touched the holy texts, would be in more danger than someone who just wrote columns..." "Even if those columns were quite provoking".
MIM:More proof that Ali was not worried for her safety before or after the filming of Submission can be seen in her comments during an interview by the BBC where she said she would be killed in an Islamic country or in Somali but:
"...I'm not intimidated by the threats and the attempts to make me shut my mouth, because living in a rich western European country like this one, I have protection that I otherwise would not have in Somalia or in Africa or in any other Islamic country..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3322399.stm
MIM: Ali's admission that if she hadnt had bodyguards she wouldnt be criticising Islam, highligt the comments she made in an interview she gave to a German journalist. A posthumous betrayal of van Gogh implying that his critics had a legitimate grievance against him, and bizarrely adding that her critics 'have never specified how far I can go...".Even more telling is how she responds to interview who says "some find the film too radical and too offensive" in a way which indicates that he must take responsibility for the film himself.:
Hirsi Ali: The criticism of van Gogh was legitimate. But when someone has to die for his world view, what he may have done wrong is no longer the issue. That's when we have to stand up for our basic rights. Otherwise we are just reinforcing the killer and conceding that there was a good reason to kill this person.
SPIEGEL: You too have been accused for your dogged criticism of Islam.
Hirsi Ali: Oddly enough, my critics never specify how far I can go...
MIM: When asked about her plans to make a sequel to Submission Ali replied to the question "Will recent events make it more difficult to screen the film?" with the comment that the director of his next oeuver ;did not like van Gogh.
( In an open letter to Ali journalist Ebru Umar speculated she had not chosen him to make Submission I,although he was a good friend of hers,because she wanted the publicity which would come from the Van Gogh name.)
Out of deference to his safety, this writer will not disclose his name. Unlike his good friend Ali, it is unlikely the new director has any protection at all. Ali also makes a gratuitously nasty point of saying that he (the director of her new and still unexistent brainchild by proxy)did not like van Gogh. For those cognescenti this 'hint' is enough to reveal the director's identity. One wonders if he will be pleased with this potentially fatal pre film publicity unless his film collaborator did lend him one of her bodyguards after this interview,
(After van Gogh's murder this FOA (Friend/Follower/Fan of Ali) wrote a piece in a prestigious American publication about his murdered predecessor, and made it a point to mention that he had made some jokes and about Jews which he had found offensive amd repeat then in his 'eulogy'.
Hirsi Ali: The conditions couldn't be more difficult (to make Submission ll). We're forced to produce the film under complete anonymity. Everyone involved in the film, from actors to technicians, will be unrecognizable. But we are determined to complete the project. The director didn't really like van Gogh, but he believes that, for the sake of free speech, shooting the sequel is critical. I'm optimistic that we'll be able to premier the film this year.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,399263,00.html
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Ik weet dat ik leef omdat omdat ik persoonsbeveiliging heb en hij dat niet had.
Ik voel me schuldig dat ik misbruik heb gemaakt van zijn gebrek aan angst, want ik wist dat wie aan de heilige schriften komt, meer gevaar loopt dan wie alleen columns schrijft.
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Hirsi Ali Crawls Over Corpse Of Theo Van Gogh, Lands Gig At American Enterprise Institute
May 15, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - As our associate Beila Rabinowitz, Director of MilitantIslamMonitor.org notes - Muslim Dutch politician Ayan Hirsi Ali is jumping ship after finding herself at the center of storm that revealed her to have lied about her background [claiming that she was fleeing an arranged marriage] in order to falsely obtain asylum in Holland, under the very rules she as a member of the Dutch parliament is charged with enforcing.
After exploiting Holland's tolerance and goodwill for personal gain, Ms. Ali is deserting the Netherlands, announcing she will be starting a new life with the help of gullible supporters in the United States who are hailing her as the new Muslima Messiah.
This despite Ali's own admission that she, "has done more harm then good" in Holland.
The former leader of the political party to which Ali is a member - Hans Wiegel - states that he is "not sorry to see her go." Wiegel has accused the Somali immigrant of neglecting her duties in parliament.
Not surprisingly Ali has decided that since she is leaving Holland anyway, she might as well take advantage of her parliamentary salary and perks while promoting her book in the United States.
Ali's celebrity came as a result of the November 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh - at the hands of Mohammed Bouyeri. She had collaborated with the incendiary filmmaker, providing the script - for which she was paid 18,000 Euros by Van Gogh - for the movie "Submission," which depicted battered Muslim women with Quranic verses painted on their naked bodies.
The outrage in Muslim circles generated by the film eventually resulted in Van Gogh's ritual murder and near decapitation by Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants.
Ali, unlike Van Gogh has little to fear since she has been under the protection of Dutch bodyguards since 2002 when she received threats after calling Mohammed a pedophile and referring to Islam as a backward religion.
Though few would be talking about Ayan Hirsi Ali today absent her association with Van Gogh, in the wake of his assassination Ali didn't even attend his funeral, choosing instead to flee the Netherlands to be feted in New York.
Not one to share the spotlight, Ali never refers to Theo van Gogh and has done nothing to see that his film, "Submission" will once again made publicly available, though she has in fact garnered publicity by claiming that she was planning to make a sequel which never materialized.
Journalist Ebru Umar - a close friend of Theo van Gogh and who took over his column in the newspaper Metro after his murder wrote, "who has benefited from Ali's involvement in Dutch society?"
That question was answered by Ali herself who recently told a Dutch paper, "I have done more harm than good. My message has come across to the public wrong."
In a letter written a month after the death of Theo van Gogh, Ebru Umar shows that Ali's message was not simply 'misconstrued' by the public, but that Ali was herself responsible, hiding her lack of substance under a blizzard of media hype.
"You sit in the Lower House because you want to serve yourself. You are surely not the only house member with that mentality , Ayaan, but you are the only one who has gotten all the freedom from your party, rightly or wrongly, to wage your own private war. What have you ever done in your capacity as House member...Ayaan?" - Ebru UmarOne can only hope that the American Enterprise Institute will be asking similar questions. In the light of Ali's still-unravelling facade it would be wise for the AEI to reconsider taking on someone whose only political legacy is the damage to her party's credibility. Her machinations continue to divert attention and resources away from the war on the Islamists and towards her own personal agenda.
Researcher Peter van Ham of the Clingendael Institute said Ayaan Hirsi Ali will be out of place at the American Enterprise Institute, "You would sooner expect Geert Wilders to be there than Hirsi Ali...It is definitely not a liberal bastion."
Ali's confrontational methods might very well be incompatible with the corporate culture of the AEI. Her need to generate controversy - such as a planned film about the sex life of Muhammed - could harm the reputation of the AEI and even endanger its staff.
Because Ayan Hirsi Ali has demonstrably done more harm than good in Holland, and is crawling over Van Gogh's corpse in a relentless drive to promote herself, the American Enterprise Institute should take heed before it's too late.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=ali51506.htm
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MIM: Hirsi Ali's pathological self absorption is glaringly illustrated by this 'howler' where she laments to a journalist that she finds it most painful that attention is being focused on her 'personality' and then proceeds to focus on herself, telling the interviewer about how her father no longer replies to her letters!
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/05/29/ap2778646.html Lawmaker reveals divisions among Dutch I find it most painful that all the attention is now being shifted from the ideas that I stand for to the personality, to such private and intimate affairs," she told the Associated Press in one of her last interviews before resigning on May 16.Hirsi Ali became internationally known when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in November 2004 by a Muslim radical incensed by a film they had collaborated on about the treatment of women under Islam. She said her father, Hirsi Magan, cursed her for dishonoring the family by running away from her marriage. After the film was released, he rejected her forever.
"In his eyes, I was an apostate," she told the AP. "Each time I tried to call him or to write to him, he wouldn't reply."
MIM: Translation of an article Ali wrote about 10 days after the piece on PLN appeared accusing her of crawling over Theo van Gogh's dead body to promote herself. Note that Ali uses the words 'I am furious', and I' am sad' nearly a dozen times.
Now there are but a few Muslim extremists but their potential influence was underestimated for too long,finds Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Translated by Beila Rabinowitz director of Militant Islam Monitor
After my first reaction of shock and disbelief the feeling of intense sadness got the upperhand. I am sad at the death of Theo. That he can' t move with his son to America. That his death had to focus attention on the presence of individuals whose religious beliefs are worth many times more then a human life. I am sad because Holland has lost it's innocence , an innocence of which Theo was an exponent. The attacks on America and Spain were rationalised away as something that could happen there not here. He said "I am the village idiot, they won't do anything to me". You have to be careful , you are the fallen woman". I am sad because my friends and I cannot congratulate him with his newest film 0605 which he was so proud of.
But I am also furious that he is dead and I am alive.I know that I am alive because I have bodyguards and that he didnt have that. I am furious that he had to undergo a ritual murder.I am furious if I listen to the State attorney say that he had had no directions to protect Vn Gogh. I am furious at the lame excuse that Van Gogh did not want any security, because I know that people who are threatened like politici get security mandated .Not just for their lives, but also for the rule of law and national security. It makes one angry and powerless to see how closely the "Amsterdam Trifecta" twists itself inside out to save themselves from taking responsibility for this.
Could the death of Theo van Gogh been prevented? Were there enough indications to go and protect him. On August 30th August, a day after the broadcast of Summer guests and internet forum called Muwahidin The True Muslim placed a photo of Theo van Gogh (from the Metro) under a photo of me (from the website from Nova) .Above the photo stood : "The unbelieving Devilish Mortadda' and my name, and above his photo stood, "The Unbeliever Devilish mocker' Theo van Gogh. At the time there wer 22 agents trying to find out who was behind this, and I lodged a complaint, I was questioned, and the perpetrator was sentenced to nine months in prison. Was Theo asked about this? Didnt anyone think that the revenge against the"unbeliever Devilish mocker" was a given, not least because of his film, but because one of them had been put in prison because of the "Devilish Mortadda' ? I was furious when I found out that the murderer of Theo van Gogh was known to the AIVD and I suspect there is a dumb and artificial separation made between politicians and opinion makers.
I am furious because I know the perpetrator is not alone: He is a member of a network of Muslims who are intensely busy with their belief and and constantly walk around with plans to kill innocent people, but above all the perpetrator could prepare himself in the midst of friends and aquaintances who would never kill anyone,but didnt find it terrible that Theo van Gogh was murdered.
This fact makes the murder of Theo van Gogh so different from the threats that the animal rights activists use against politicians or letters with bullets for politicians. The last two threats are manageable. Islamic terrrorism, in Holland as well outside, could continue because it is embedded in a larger circle of Muslim who think alike. I am furious that this fact is not sinking into the minds of the people who are responsible for our security.
I feel guilty that I went to Theo with the script of 'Submission'. And that he was killed as a result. From a rational point of view I know that only the killer is guilty for his death. Emotionally that is confusing. Theo and I had very extensive discussions about the possible consequences for both of us.He said" At the moment when these considerations keep you from speaking your mind, then that means there is no freedom of expression? That is grist for the mill of the Islamists".
I was prepared to go very far to wake people up: on one side the Dutch authorities, who have to realise that radical Islam and it's adherents have nestled themselves in Holland, and on the other side the Islamic masses, who have to see the ugly birthmarks of their own religion. The Islamic masses have to realise that their backwardness doesnt lay so much in the fact that their belief in God is weak, or that they are discriminated against by Jews or other non believers, as the radicals claim, but that their backwardness is partially to blame on themselves. The treatment of the individual, the position of women, the forming of their own ghettos like Islamic schools, are the reasons for their own backwardness.
Theo agreed with me on all these points. Even more, in his capacity as filmaker he tried not to shut out the Islamic youth but to bring them in.His film Coool wand the series Najib and Julia were made from that ideal. I feel guilty that I have exploited his lack of fear, because I know that whoever criticised the holy texts was in more danger then someone who just wrote columns . Also even when those those columns could be provoking in content.
A person was killed in a horrific way just way just because of what he thinks.For Holland this is relatively new, but in Islamic countries it is the order of the day. Now that a considerable portion of the Dutch population is Muslim,it is time for the cabinet and other authorities to take into consideration the the reasonable fear of 70%of the population. (see the lates SCP- report). That does not take away the fact that we must continually emphasize that today it is about a very small part of their Islamic fellow citizens, but that the potential influence of extremists with the group is big.
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MIM:Ali tells the world -'I am furious' about the murder of Theo van Gogh
'Ik ben de dorpsgek, jij de afvallige vrouw'
Moord Theo van Gogh: De woede van Hirsi Ali IJzig klimaat
Nu zijn er nog maar weinig moslimextremisten, maar hun potentiële invloed is veel te lang onderschat, vindt Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
http://www.nrc.nl/opinie/article323788.ece
Na mijn eerste reactie van schok en ongeloof heeft het gevoel van intens verdriet de overhand gekregen. Ik ben verdrietig om de dood van Theo. Dat hij niet met zijn zoon naar Amerika kan verhuizen. Dat hij dood moest om de aandacht te vestigen op de aanwezigheid van individuen voor wie geloofsovertuiging vele malen meer waard is dan een mensenleven. Ik ben verdrietig omdat Nederland opnieuw zijn onschuld kwijt is, een onschuld waar Theo het exponent van was. De aanval op Amerika en Spanje werd weggerationaliseerd als iets wat daar kan gebeuren, niet hier. Theo's naïviteit was niet dat het hier niet kon gebeuren, maar dat het hem niet kon gebeuren. Hij zei: `Ik ben de dorpsgek, die doen ze niets. Wees jij voorzichtig, jij bent de afvallige vrouw.' Ik ben verdrietig omdat mijn vrienden en ik hem niet kunnen feliciteren met zijn nieuwe film `0605', waar hij zo trots op was.
Maar ik ben ook woedend, dat hij dood is en dat ik leef. Ik weet dat ik leef omdat ik persoonsbeveiliging heb en hij dat niet had. Ik ben woedend dat hij een rituele slachting heeft moeten ondergaan. Ik ben woedend als ik luister naar de hoofdofficier van justitie die zegt geen aanwijzingen gehad te hebben om Van Gogh te beveiligen. Ik ben woedend op de zwakke smoes dat Van Gogh zelf geen beveiliging wilde, omdat ik weet dat mensen die gevaar lopen politici beveiliging wordt opgelegd. Niet alleen om hun leven, maar ook voor de openbare orde en nationale veiligheid. Het maakt je boos en machteloos om te zien hoe knullig de `Amsterdamse driehoek' zich in bochten wringt om zich hieruit te redden.
Was de dood van Theo van Gogh te voorkomen? Waren er genoeg aanwijzingen om hem te gaan beveiligen? Op 30 augustus, één dag na de uitzending van Zomergasten met daarin `Submission part 1', werd op het internetforum van de Muwahihidin De Ware Moslims de foto van Theo van Gogh (uit de Metro) onder een foto van mij (van de website van Nova) geplaatst. Boven mijn foto stond `De Ongelovige Duivelse Mortadda' en mijn naam, boven zijn foto stond `De Ongelovige Duivelse Spotter', Theo van Gogh. Er zijn toen 22 rechercheurs aan het werk gezet om te achterhalen wie dit gedaan heeft. Ik heb aangifte gedaan, ik ben gehoord, en de dader is veroordeeld tot negen maanden gevangenisstraf. Is Theo hier iets over gevraagd? Had niemand kunnen bedenken dat wraak op `de ongelovige duivelse spotter' voor de hand lag, niet alleen wegens de film, maar ook omdat een van hen gevangen was gezet wegens een ongelovige duivels mortadda? Ik ben woedend erachter te komen dat de moordenaar van Theo van Gogh een bekende was van de AIVD ik vermoed dat er een dom kunstmatig onderscheid werd gehanteerd tussen politici en opiniemakers.
Ik ben woedend omdat ik weet dat de dader niet alleen is: hij is lid van een netwerk van moslims die intens bezig zijn met hun geloof en allemaal rondlopen met voornemens om onschuldige mensen te doden, maar bovendien kon de dader zich voorbereiden te midden van vrienden en kennissen die zelf nooit iemand zouden vermoorden, maar het niet erg vonden dat Theo van Gogh gedood is.
Dat gegeven maakt de moord op Van Gogh zo anders dan de dreigementen van dierenactivisten tegen politici of de kogelbrieven voor politici. Deze laatste twee dreigingen zijn hanteerbaar. Islamitisch terrorisme, zowel in Nederland als daarbuiten, kan gedijen omdat het ingebed is in een grotere kring van eensgezinde medemoslims. Ik ben woedend dat dat gegeven maar niet wil doordringen tot de mensen die verantwoordelijk zijn voor onze veiligheid.
Ik voel me schuldig dat ik naar Theo ben gegaan met het script van `Submission'. En dat hij daarom gedood is. Rationeel weet ik dat alleen de dader schuldig is aan zijn dood. Gevoelsmatig is dat verwarrend. Theo en ik hebben het uitvoerig gehad over de mogelijke consequenties voor ons beiden. Hij zei: `Op het moment dat deze overwegingen je weerhouden van het uiten van je mening, is er toch geen vrijheid van meningsuiting? Dat is koren op de molen van de islamisten.'
Ik was bereid heel ver te gaan om mensen wakker te schudden: aan de ene kant de Nederlandse autoriteiten, die zich moeten realiseren dat de radicale islam en zijn aanhangers zich in Nederland hebben genesteld, en aan de andere kant de islamitische massa, die de lelijke moedervlekken van hun eigen godsdienst moeten leren zien. De islamitische massa zou zich moeten realiseren dat zijn achterstand niet zozeer ligt in het feit dat hun geloof in god verzwakt is, of dat ze door joden danwel andere ongelovigen gediscrimineerd worden, zoals de radicalen hen voorhouden, maar dat die achterstand deels aan henzelf ligt. De behandeling van het individu, de positie van de vrouw, het stichten van eigen ghetto's als islamitische scholen, het zijn verklaringen voor de eigen achterstand.
Op al deze punten was Theo het met mij eens. Sterker nog, op zijn manier en als cineast probeerde hij zoveel mogelijk de islamitische jeugd niet uit te sluiten maar hen aansluiting te geven. Zijn film Cool en de serie Najib en Julia zijn vanuit dat ideaal gemaakt. Ik voel me schuldig dat ik misbruik heb gemaakt van zijn gebrek aan angst, want ik wist dat wie aan de heilige schriften komt, meer gevaar loopt dan wie alleen columns schrijft. Ook wanneer die columns inhoudelijk pittig zijn.
Een mens is op een gruwelijke manier afgemaakt, alleen om wat hij vindt. Voor Nederland is dit relatief nieuw, maar in islamitische landen is het aan de orde van de dag. Nu een aanzienlijk deel de Nederlandse bevolking moslim is, is het tijd voor het kabinet en andere gezagsdragers om de gegronde angst van de 70 procent van de bevolking (zie het jongste SCP-rapport) serieus te nemen. Dat neemt niet weg dat we voortdurend moeten benadrukken dat het vandaag nog om een zeer klein deel van de islamitische medeburgers gaat, maar dat de potentiële invloed van extremisten binnen die groep groot is
.
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MIM: Everyone is afraid to criticise Islam unless they have taxpayer funded bodyguards like Ali. The double Ali picture says it all. If it's not about Ali then it's not about anything.
DER SPIEGEL 6/2006 - February 6, 2006
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,399263,00.html
SPIEGEL Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam'
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech.
SPIEGEL: Hirsi Ali, you have called the Prophet Muhammad a tyrant and a pervert. Theo van Gogh, the director of your film "Submission," which is critical of Islam, was murdered by Islamists. You yourself are under police protection. Can you understand how the Danish cartoonists feel at this point?
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| DPA Hirsi Ali: "The cartoons should be displayed everywhere." |
Hirsi Ali: They probably feel numb. On the one hand, a voice in their heads is encouraging them not to sell out their freedom of speech. At the same time, they're experiencing the shocking sensation of what it's like to lose your own personal freedom. One mustn't forget that they're part of the postwar generation, and that all they've experienced is peace and prosperity. And now they suddenly have to fight for their own human rights once again.
SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?
Hirsi Ali: There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is precisely because they have criticized religion, the political establishment and society. Totalitarian Islamic regimes are in a deep crisis. Globalization means that they're exposed to considerable change, and they also fear the reformist forces developing among émigrés in the West. They'll use threatening gestures against the West, and the success they achieve with their threats, to intimidate these people.
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SPIEGEL: Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?
Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it's already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don't notice how much abuse we're taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch.
SPIEGEL: What should the appropriate European response look like?
Hirsi Ali: There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can't boycott goods from every country. They're far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.
SPIEGEL: But Muslims, like any religious community, should also be able to protect themselves against slander and insult.
Hirsi Ali: That's exactly the reflex I was just talking about: offering the other cheek. Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren't preaching hatred in their mosques. They call Jews and Christians inferior, and we say they're just exercising their freedom of speech. When will the Europeans realize that the Islamists don't allow their critics the same right? After the West prostrates itself, they'll be more than happy to say that Allah has made the infidels spineless.
SPIEGEL: What will be the upshot of the storm of protests against the cartoons?
Hirsi Ali: We could see the same thing happening that has happened in the Netherlands, where writers, journalists and artists have felt intimidated ever since the van Gogh murder. Everyone is afraid to criticize Islam. Significantly, "Submission" still isn't being shown in theaters.
SPIEGEL: Many have criticized the film as being too radical and too offensive.
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| AP Police at the scene of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh's murder. |
Hirsi Ali: The criticism of van Gogh was legitimate. But when someone has to die for his world view, what he may have done wrong is no longer the issue. That's when we have to stand up for our basic rights. Otherwise we are just reinforcing the killer and conceding that there was a good reason to kill this person.
SPIEGEL: You too have been accused for your dogged criticism of Islam.
Hirsi Ali: Oddly enough, my critics never specify how far I can go. How can you address problems if you're not even allowed to clearly define them? Like the fact that Muslim women at home are kept locked up, are raped and are married off against their will -- and that in a country in which our far too passive intellectuals are so proud of their freedom!
SPIEGEL: The debate over speaking Dutch on the streets and the integration programs for potentially violent Moroccan youth -- do these things also represent the fruits of your provocations?
Hirsi Ali: The sharp criticism has finally triggered an open debate over our relationship with Muslim immigrants. We have become more conscious of things. For example, we are now classifying honor killings by the victims' countries of origin. And we're finally turning our attention to young girls who are sent against their wills from Morocco to Holland as brides, and adopting legislation to make this practice more difficult.
SPIEGEL: You're working on a sequel to "Submission." Will you stick to your uncompromising approach?
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Hirsi Ali: Yes, of course. We want to continue the debate over the Koran's claim to absoluteness, the infallibility of the Prophet and sexual morality. In the first part, we portrayed a woman who speaks to her god, complaining that despite the fact that she has abided by his rules and subjugated herself, she is still being abused by her uncle. The second part deals with the dilemma into which the Muslim faith plunges four different men. One hates Jews, the second one is gay, the third is a bon vivant who wants to be a good Muslim but repeatedly succumbs to life's temptations, and the fourth is a martyr. They all feel abandoned by their god and decide to stop worshipping him.
SPIEGEL: Will recent events make it more difficult to screen the film?
Hirsi Ali: The conditions couldn't be more difficult. We're forced to produce the film under complete anonymity. Everyone involved in the film, from actors to technicians, will be unrecognizable. But we are determined to complete the project. The director didn't really like van Gogh, but he believes that, for the sake of free speech, shooting the sequel is critical. I'm optimistic that we'll be able to premier the film this year.
SPIEGEL: Is the Koran's claim to absoluteness, which you criticize in "Submission," the central obstacle to reforming Islam?
Hirsi Ali: The doctrine stating that the faith is inalterable because the Koran was dictated by God must be replaced. Muslims must realize that it was human beings who wrote the holy scriptures. After all, most Christians don't believe in hell, in the angels or in the earth having been created in six days. They now see these things as symbolic stories, but they still remain true to their faith.
INTERVIEW: GERALD TRAUFETTER
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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